Functional Outcomes of Human Urinary Kallindinogenases in Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke

The neurorestorative potential of HUK (human urinary kallidinogenase) has drawn considerable clinical attention. Our study aimed to explore the therapeutic efficacy of HUK in patients with acute ischemic stroke.

Our data were retrospectively extracted from CASTOR (Chinese Acute Ischemic Stroke Treatment Outcome Registry), a prospective, multicenter study from 2015 to 2019 in China. The data was separated into 2 categories, the mild group (0-5 points) and the moderate group (6-25 points), according to the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score measured at admission and analyzed by propensity score matching with HUK or non-HUK ratio of 1:1. The percentage of patients with modified Rankin Scale score ≤1 at 3 months after onset was the primary outcome.

Ten thousand two patients were recruited, after the criteria were filtered, 9005 patients were investigated. Following propensity score matching, a total of 6530 patients were ultimately enrolled in the analysis, consisting of 4284 patients in the mild group and 2246 patients in the moderate group. In the mild group, the mean age was 63.5±11.7 years, and females accounted for 31.91%. In the moderate group, the mean age was 64.7±10.9 years, and females occupied a proportion of 36.78%. At the 3-month follow-up, a significantly higher proportion of HUK-treated patients achieved the primary outcome compared with controls in both mild (76.89% [1647/2142] versus 74.13% [1588/2142]; P=0.0013) and moderate (43.10% [484/1123] versus 38.02% [427/1123]; P=0.03) groups.

HUK therapy has potential efficacy in improving the prognosis of patients with both mild and moderate severity of acute ischemic stroke. Nevertheless, additional rigorously designed randomized controlled trials are essential to substantiate these findings.

URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov; Unique identifier: NCT02470624.